[HOWTO]Change the digitizer screen (ZTE Blade)

[Guest Erikvc]

Anybody having difficulty to get the digitizer to work?

Changed on my GF phone but the digi didnt work, the seller has shipped another one.

I have seen a few reports regarding this, but no solution.

I'm still waiting for my digitizer to arrive. Found this on a german forum, I'm afraid the digitzer wont fix my blade. My german isn't that good but it has something to do with soldering the touchscreen chip to the motherboard. It can come loose due to the cheap production. Im not much of a soldering hero so Ill wait till I have the courage to do so. Anyone any experience with this?

[Guest Oyorf]

I had a lot of dust under the screen and also in speaker so it was hard to hear what people were saying. So I dismount blade(have done this now 3 times) and used compressed air to clean dust away. Then I assembled Blade like before but now touch screen is not working at all. Physical buttons are working and also screen works, but touch is not working at all.

I tried many times to unplug and plug this cable from pcb to digitizer(?) part that is attached to front screen cover. But this wont help at all. Pretty strange that how this screen can go broken so easily, only thing I did was just turned the screen away from frontcover so I was able to clean screens and speaker. How can they even build these in factory if this goes broken that easily?

Is there anything that I can do to try to fix this? I would not like to buy new digitizer as I'm not 100% sure that it will fix this and because it costs about 35€ including shipment as whole phone costs only about 100€.

Edited June 15, 2011 by Oyorf

[Guest Erikvc]

I had a lot of dust under the screen and also in speaker so it was hard to hear what people were saying. So I dismount blade(have done this now 3 times) and used compressed air to clean dust away. Then I assembled Blade like before but now touch screen is not working at all. Physical buttons are working and also screen works, but touch is not working at all.

I tried many times to unplug and plug this cable from pcb to digitizer(?) part that is attached to front screen cover. But this wont help at all. Pretty strange that how this screen can go broken so easily, only thing I did was just turned the screen away from frontcover so I was able to clean screens and speaker. How can they even build these in factory if this goes broken that easily?

Is there anything that I can do to try to fix this? I would not like to buy new digitizer as I'm not 100% sure that it will fix this and because it costs about 35€ including shipment as whole phone costs only about 100€.

Not sure if it will help you, but replacing the digitizer fixed mine. Only thing is I had a white one, and apparently the white front is a bit different from the black front. So now there is a gap off about 2mm between the plastic/chrome thingys and the new black front. Maybe I will try to fix this one day but I'm a little afraid I'll end up with a dead touchscreen again so I'll just cope with the gaps and the incoming dust.

Shipping to the Netherlands took about 1,5 week, so Im not complaining.

[Guest partycolonia]

i found an digitizer and an display (TFT) on ebay germany. Member: wawawarhier

When your is broken lokk at him before sold out

here are the Artkelnumbers

Display: 230636416773

digitizer: 230636419617

[Guest Oyorf]

I just ordered new digitizer from ebay. Will report here if it works or not.

[Guest Mushroom_Lord]

Just to end @swisstourist's mad thread someone who broke their digitizer (and therefore doesn't mind it being messed up a lot) prove to him its plastic.

[Guest Oyorf]

I got new digitizer screen today and changed it and it works.

Only problem is that it came with scratches. Have you got yours like brand new or with some scratches? I don't know if scratches came because of post service or was this screen already used or something. But I will complain.

[Guest WAWA72]

Thx Godfather that he is working. Some scratches is for your personality :)

[Guest deadonthestairs]

I've just been to replace my screen and after taking my San Fran apart realised it's actually the OLED screen underneath that is cracked, not the digitizer screen :(

Is there any way to replace this or am I going to have to buy a new one? If I pester Orange is it likely that they'll replace it?

Thanks.

[Guest Goots]

Wow this thread is still alive ?

Sorry guys for not replying, it wasn't notifying me of replies for some reason, I wasn't being intentionally ignorant!

I can't believe the price of these things now! Mine was £19.99 with free p&p to the UK from eBay.

I don't know if the oled screen itself is replaceable I'm afraid, replacing the digitizer was about the limit of my technical ability.

I do know there is a new handset on the way called the "Orange Monte Carlo" which is a direct replacement for the San Fran, so we might see a few of these great little handsets going cheap on eBay soon :)

Edited September 15, 2011 by Goots

[Guest Zandarts]

Although hard to see in these pictures, there are 5 little foam oval widgets, 2 down one side of the board, and three down the other, each covered with a silvery conductor. The ones on the side with 3 make contact with a lead with bare patches adjacent to these widgets. If you look carefully at Picture 5 in the first posting, you can see the lead on the side with three, running down the edge - one contact is near the mid-height of the battery housing, and the other two are roughly at each end of the battery housing.

Sorry for bumping an old topic but could those foam widgets be the reason my touchscreen is not working after I opened my phone to clean it? I managed to damage one of the oval thingies while opening the phone, the one of two not directly connected to the wire, on the other side.

[Guest Goots]

As far as I know, the only electrical connection between the digitizer and the motherboard is the fine ribbon cable. This looks very fragile even though it is quite flexible.

[Guest Zandarts]

Well, then I must think of other reasons why touchscreen stopped responding.

Update: I've disconnected digitizer completely and left only motherboard/screen/battery, still no response from the touchscreen :(

Edited August 9, 2011 by Zandarts

[Guest JimJam707]

I can't find any good cheap White screens from eBay or amazon :/

[Guest Mushroom_Lord]

Ive got a windscreen style "chip" which spread from half a centrimeter to across the whole screen in a matter of moments. I literally looked away from it for 1 second and the next thing I know the whole screen is covered :P Anyone know how to stop the crack spreading?

and what is the most recent "trusted" ebay link?

I may just hold out till Xmas in hope something cheap and better than the ckate comes out with a cm7 port :P

[Guest darkado]

any cheaper than this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Genuine-San-Francisco-TOUCH-SCREEN-DIGITIZER-ZTE-Blade-/170669706024?pt=UK_Replacement_Parts_Tools&hash=item27bcb50b28

Edited August 17, 2011 by darkado

[Guest mikeybhoy]

any cheaper than this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/...=item27bcb50b28

I ordered one this week from GraveDigga for £24.99. Had to e-mail her to ask for the ZTE Blade digitizer to be listed again and it's now showing on ebay

http://www.ebay.co.u...#ht_2029wt_1139

Was delivered very quickly and while it says its graded stock, it was to all intents and purposes like new (although I was hoping it would say ZTE Blade rather than San Francisco)

Followed the instructions in the first post (thanks OP), took about 10 mins in all.

I tend to keep the ZTE in my back pocket which is probably why I've ended up with a cracked screen. Anyone know of a good protective case for the ZTE Blade?

[Guest stevoknevo]

£20.50 from here http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-SAN-FRANCISCO-TOUCH-SCREEN-DISPLAY-DIGITIZER-/270796105185?pt=UK_Mobiles_Accessories_RL&hash=item3f0cb4a5e1

[Guest r1chd]

Hmmmm. I also bought a digitiser from Gravedigga. It looked new, no problems there. When I replaced it, I couldn't get the touchscreen to work, and now the broken one won't work either. The display comes up, but it's unresponsive. I've tried reconnecting it a few times, but it's still the same. Does anyone have any ideas? Have I broken it?

[Guest Maxsas360]

Contacts could be dirty. Clean them.

[Guest WAWA72]

Contact her, you get another.

[Guest Stephen1915]

Briiliant post - thank you.

Breathed new life in to my dead San Fran

Got the digitiser from here - http://links.modaco....%2Fpage__st__60

Digitiser arrived as promised within 48 hours in suitable packaging - quality of product excellent and to be recommended.

Stephen

Edited August 25, 2011 by Stephen1915

[Guest scoula]

Cleaned the inside of my screen to get rid of the dust as per the instructions on page 1, but like a few other people here it has resulted in a non-working touchscreen afterwards. I haven't done any obvious damage that I can see to the ribbon cable, one of the oval shaped metal sponge things that run down both sides did fall off but I managed to wedge it into place successfully. Did anyone who had the same problem come up with a solution?

I'm not so sure it's the digitzer because even when I turned on the phone with the digitizer disconnected and tried running my finger across the actual screen itself it was still not responding to touch...or maybe that's normal with no digitizer connected?

Thanks for any help.

Edited August 26, 2011 by scoula

[Guest Goots]

Just to clear up any confusion guys, the digitizer bit that I replaced has nothing to do with the actual display screen of the phone.

The display screen is the thing that actually displays graphics, text, photos, etc..

The digitizer screen is the clear bit that sits on top of the display screen, the bit that you actually touch with your finger.

They do look like one and the same piece when the phone is assembled, but they are actually two completely separate parts.

If your display screen has failed for whatever reason, changing the digitizer screen won't fix it.

[Guest anything-but]

Just brought my old oled blade back to life with a digitizer from here My link , upgraded with the gen1 to gen2 gingerbread stirfry (quite impressed with that) and the old sony ericsson W205 can now go back in the draw! :D.